> ----------
> From: Eggert, Len
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 1998 10:38AM
> To: 'Chile-Heads Digest'
> Cc: 'Ben at Work'
> Subject: Testing for Echo (Norfolk, VA Eats)
>
> Hey George (Goslowsky):
>
> I used to live in Norfolk, but it's been a few years (actually, more
> than a few), so I can't really recommend any restaurants featuring
> chiles. There are plenty of good seafood restaurants in town, and you
> can ask any of your business associates there to recommend one nearby.
> But there are two local "institutions" that you ought to check out:
>
> Regino's, an Italian restaurant in the old Ward's Corner shopping
> center at the intersection of Granby St. and Little Creek Rd. The
> manager and cook have been partners in this place, in the same
> location, for at least 35-40 years. The sausage is homemade and to
> die for. And the veal parmigiana here is the real deal, not "a
> Salisbury steak in a Shake and Bake, smothered in Campbell's tomato
> soup and a provocative sauce of Velveeta," as the inimitable Tom Waits
> describes the dish in "Nighthawks at the Diner." Portions are large,
> so be hungry.
>
> The French Bakery (I think it's still called), a tiny pastry shop AND
> DELI located a couple of blocks on the other (downtown) side of the
> Granby Street Bridge, near City Park. This place has been run by the
> same family for most of this century. (My great uncle, dead over 40
> years, was buddies with George, dead over 30 years and the son of the
> guy who started the business. George's wife and sons still run the
> place. Now get this: The last time I was in there, a couple of years
> ago, George's *mother*, well into her 90's, was still bussing tables
> and holding forth.) The pastries are incredible, but we go for the
> sandwiches, which are unique in the Western world. Order the house
> submarine. The pastrami will be sautéed in a little olive oil just
> before it goes on the roll and then slathered in a sauce that I have
> tried to duplicate, with little success, for years (olive oil, herbs,
> a little Dijon mustard and nutmeg . . .). The bread is all made there
> and unbelievably good. (True story: In the 1940's, the French navy
> put into port in Norfolk to replenish their stores and turn their
> sailors loose for furlough in the dens of iniquity downtown. Some of
> their guys discovered George's bread and took some back to the ship.
> The admiral tried a chunk and was so impressed that he ordered
> something like 2,000 loaves for the crew. George had to lock the
> doors to the public and work night and day for a week to fill the
> order.) If you're famished, you might be able to eat a large sub (as I
> could in my youth), but a "small" one will probably do the trick. (Or
> share a large one if you're not eating alone; somehow the big one just
> tastes better.) Grab an imported beer from the old soda cooler (the
> kind where the bottles sit in chilled water), sit under one of the
> original (1920's vintage) belt-driven ceiling fans, and give thanks
> that some things, at least, never change.
>
> Len Eggert
> leggert@sysplan.com
>